| Peak(s): |
El Diente Peak - 14,175 feet Mt. Wilson - 14,256 feet Wilson Peak - 14,021 feet |
| Date Posted: | 07/30/2014 |
| Modified: | 09/23/2016 |
| Date Climbed: | 07/30/2014 |
| Author: | bbass11 |
| Peak(s): |
El Diente Peak - 14,175 feet Mt. Wilson - 14,256 feet Wilson Peak - 14,021 feet |
| Date Posted: | 07/30/2014 |
| Modified: | 09/23/2016 |
| Date Climbed: | 07/30/2014 |
| Author: | bbass11 |
| Wilson Group from Navajo Lake |
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A Week in the San Juans This is my first trip report. Hopefully it ends up being helpful to someone as so many other trip reports have been helpful to me. Jeff and I have been hiking together for three summers now. We work together at Rocky Mountain High Adventure Base guiding high school youth on backpacking, rock climbing, and mountain biking trips. At the end of each summer we've tried to get out and do some of the peaks that are too far for us to reach on our Saturdays off from our home near Salida. 2012 was Wetterhorn and Longs, 2013 was the Chicago Basin and Uncompaghre. This year the Wilson's were one of the top priorities on the list, though we actually got to hike for two weeks and knocked off Redcloud, Sunshine, Wetterhorn, Wilson Group, Sneffels, Maroon Bells, Capitol, Castle, Conundrum, and Pyramid from 7/27 to 8/8/2014. We also brought along some of our other guides this year. Group: Me (Brian), Jeff, Kayla, Alihah, Curt Day 1: Hike into Navajo Lake We amended our schedule in the middle of the first week and decided to do the Wilson's on Tues-Wed-Thurs (after Redcloud/Sunshine and Wetterhorn) because of the terrible weather forecast for Tuesday. Sure enough, it rained all day on Tuesday. The trail to Navajo Lake is pretty straightforward and easy to follow. There are two turnoffs to other trails, but they are both signed. However, most of the trail is not wooded, but rather walks through open meadows on a narrow trail partially overgrown with big, leafy plants that hold tons of water. We decided not to put rain pants on and later regretted it as these plants just dumped water on us all day. Fortunately we were wearing chacos so our shoes in our pack stayed dry at least, but by the time we reached Navajo Lake, we might as well have swum in the lake. It cleared up for about 2 hours in the afternoon which was enough to mostly dry out our clothes for the next day. Based on feedback from other users on the forum, I decided to attempt the traverse between El Diente and Mt Wilson rather than do them on separate days. This was a great decision. The descent from Mt Wilson ended up being unpleasant enough. I would have dreaded trying to descend from El Diente via the North Buttress.  Day 2: El Diente and Mt Wilson We got on trail about 4:30 the next morning and reached the trail turnoff about a mile from the lake by 5. I don't think there is any marker for where to leave the trail. We left it where the stream comes right up to the trail. This seemed to coincide with the waypoint in Roach's book as well. Anyway, we started making our way across the blackness toward the buttress. I think we gained the crest of the ridge for the first time higher than you are supposed to, and it was a while longer still before we had enough light to tell whether we were on the correct route at all or not.  Eventually I did start to recognize some features from the route description online, so I gained some confidence in the route, but there was still a lot of going back and forth, scouting out certain portions of the route before committing the whole group to it. There are cairns on the North Buttress in places, but we were never able to actually follow a cairn trail for any length of time; we would just see one every now and then and take some solace in the fact that at least someone had come that way before... In general, I think you just head straight up toward the top, staying on or near the ridge crest.   Also, something that we hadn't expected so much from this route were loose boulders. It could have been an effect of all the rain the day before, but we definitely ran into some loose rocks. Big ones. There was one point at which Kayla was standing on a slab about the size of a bumper car when it and the similar size rock below it started sliding slowly toward Curt and myself below her. Fortunately they came to a rest before they had moved more than a few inches. Someone in our group up ahead of me also dislodged a basketball sized rock at one point which careened through the gully to the right of the buttress, leaving in its wake a trail of what looked like smoke and the smell of scorched earth. It was terrifying. I had been contemplating climbing up in the gully to the right as it looked like a relatively easy approach, but that boulder cleansed me of all such thoughts. It looked like most rocks that do come loose will fall into that gully where they could in turn dislodge more rocks, so I think staying up on or near the ridge crest is the much better option.   We did find the "V" snowfield, though this late in the year it did not exist anymore. Even without the snow, the area is easily recognizable from the route pictures. Above the catwalk, we skirted to the left of the tower described in the route description. We were not able to find a route across the gray slabs to our liking, so we took the right hand alternative. From here we were able to find a couple easy class 4 chimneys that led to the summit ridge.       The summit of El Diente is quite underwhelming. Also, we couldn't see off the top due to fog. We ended up staying on top less than 5 minutes, and didn't even take a photo.   Fortunately, the traverse between El Diente and Mt Wilson is much better cairned than the North Buttress route of El Diente. All in all, we found the traverse to Mt Wilson to be easier both in terms of scrambling difficulty and route finding than the climb up El Diente (though the traverse is more exposed).     The route was clear and easy to follow around the organ pipes, and before long we were up to the gendarmes. At the gendarmes was the first of two spots where I cost us a little time with my hesitancy. Photo #13 in the route description of the traverse is very easy to find, and it is well cairned. However, when I stepped through the notch shown in figure 13, it seemed too hard to get to the next cairn, so we turned around and started to descend below the gendarmes. Roach mentions this approach in the book to keep the difficulty at class 2+ I think. Before long it was obvious that that was going to be a huge waste of time, so we went back to the notch and decided to try the step up to the next cairn. It was a little exposed, but turned out not to be as big of deal as I thought it was going to be at first.     Moving past the gendarmes, we also stayed below the ridge crest way too long and were not able to take advantage of the easier section of hiking in photo 19 of the route description. We did eventually get to the ridge and made it to the narrow coxcomb section. In my opinion, this is the most exposed work I have done on a 14er. That includes the Bells traverse, Pyramid, Capitol, Sunlight, and the Crestones (individually, no traverse). I thought this was more exposed than all of those. The Wilson traverse is more exposed than the knife edge in my opinion, because you are actually having to step over rocks and make some basic moves on the exposed ridge, whereas on the knife edge on Capitol the holds are so solid you just walk across.        Roach calls the exposure on top of this ridge as 'sensational on both sides'. I agree with him. It was awesome. And I felt like the most exposure I've seen yet on a 14er (I still have to do the Crestone Traverse and LB-Blanca traverse though). I tried to capture a little of the exposure with the view to the summit in the photo above. We made the downclimb from the ridge crest to the final saddle and started up the summit pitch of Mt Wilson. I would say the hardest 'climbing moves' of the entire route are right here at the top of Mt Wilson. I think the second hardest part we did were the chimneys just below the summit of El Diente. So, if you can do either of these routes by themselves, I think you are capable of doing the traverse, assuming you handle exposure well. If you don't do well with exposure, the traverse will give you problems.       The crux move on Mt Wilson is the hardest single move I have encountered on a 14er standard route, and it's not even close in my opinion (I haven't done Little Bear yet). Whether you go to the right or left of the crux block, it will require some class 4 moves over exposure. Mt Wilson is ranked as the 5th most difficult on this website, and in my opinion there is a noticeable step up in difficulty from Crestone Needle (#6) to Mt Wilson. That being said, I didn't use the standard route on Mt Wilson, and I was not uncomfortable at any point, but up to this point, I would rank the El Diente-Mt Wilson day as my most difficult hike on a 14er. Take it for whatever that's worth.    Due to our lack of visibility and the clouds building up further east, we did not stay long on the summit of Mt Wilson. We didn't take the standard route down either, and kind of traversed down the hillside toward the general direction of Navajo Lake. This worked out alright. We didn't have to cross any of the remaining snowfields that were on the standard route, and we never cliffed out or anything. There was a lot of loose scree, which was probably the main danger on the route we took. We didn't see a single other person on trail with us the entire day, though there were a few other people camped at Navajo Lake. Day 3: Wilson Peak We slept in a little later on Thursday, and woke up about 4:30 to hit the trail shortly after 5. There is a trail all the way to the top basically, but at some points in the marshy areas near the creek in the Navajo Basin, the trail is not very distinct. Having a high power flashlight this early in the morning really helped us look down the trail and spot the next cairn. We made it to the Rock of Ages Saddle and then to the connecting ridge with Gladstone by sunrise.   The trail is a pretty good one, even through the rocks, all the way up to the class 3 crux just below the summit. There are a few class 3 or class 2+ moves across the ledges below this crux, but nothing too bad.  The crux of the route is an up, down, then back up class 3 portion that is quite fun. We made it to the summit at 7:05.      Below are some pictures of our descent. You can see that the trail is quite good, even beyond the Rock of Ages Saddle.    It started storming about 11 am that day. Fortunately we were already back to our car at Navajo Lake trailhead. We drove to Ouray to do Sneffels the next day on a fresh coat of powder. Final Thoughts All in all, the El Diente - Mt Wilson traverse is probably my second favorite route I have done on a 14er behind the Bells traverse. Weather conditions weren't ideal, and we rushed a bit because of that at the summits, but it was still an awesome day. There is loose rock. I think we took it for granted at first how loose it could be, and it almost cost us. Be careful. There is tons of exposure. I did this mountain before I had done any of the Elks, but it puts Crestone Needle, Longs, and Sunlight to shame in that regard (as well as all the other standard routes I have done). The traverse is a commitment, but it's not terrible. You definitely want good weather. So from the summit of El Diente, there are a couple of bail points if weather is to arise. Obviously, you have the North Buttress route and North slopes route right there at the top, and within a short distance the South slopes route from El Diente, but if you are going to bail at one of these points you probably already realized at the summit you aren't going to make the traverse. Then it's a fairly long way before you meet up with the standard route from Mt Wilson, probably an hour or so. So be mindful of your weather. If I was going to rank the 14ers based on difficulty right now based on the routes I've done, it's probably be Mt. Wilson, El Diente, Crestone Peak in that order at the top. These peaks were a blast. I will definitely repeat them someday. Every one hikes at different speeds so I am not sure how valuable these are, but for some reference, our times were approximately as follows: TH - Navajo Lake: 1 hr, 45 min Navajo Lake - El Diente: Almost 4 hrs El Diente - Mt Wilson: 1 hr, 30 min Mt Wilson - Navajo Lake: Approx 2.5 -3 hours Navajo Lake - Wilson Peak: 2 hrs Be safe, maybe we'll see y'all up top in the summers to come. Here are some summary video clips from the traverse day El Diente https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY32zoyNakU Traverse, Part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PgNHkvgl0A Traverse, Part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrEUy92u55s Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow): 
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